


Mine Eyes Dazzle

by La Reine Noire (lareinenoire)



Category: 15th Century CE RPF, Historical RPF
Genre: Character Death, Deeply dodgy politics, F/M, Gratuitous Quotation, Moral Relativism, Sibling Incest, Violence, dark thematic material, ecclesiastical authorities in compromising positions, emphasizin ur wimminz, possibly educational footnotes, rampant classical allusion, references to STDs, references to period-accurate underage sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 22:22:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,642
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/142357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lareinenoire/pseuds/La%20Reine%20Noire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mine Eyes Dazzle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [marketchippie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/marketchippie/gifts).



> Title from John Webster, _The Duchess of Malfi_. Summary is stolen from Shakespeare, _Measure for Measure_ (2.1.41) because the author is terrible at summaries and Shakespeare is good for all occasions. Explanatory notes are at the end and marked throughout. A thousand, thousand thanks to my wonderful beta-readers, R. and G.; this fic would not be finished without you.

_i. September, 1492_

 

That Envy was amongst the Seven Deadly Sins was a well-known fact even to one who had not attended the universities at Pisa and Perugia. Cesare Borgia, Bishop of Pamplona and countless other benefices to which he paid no attention whatsoever, was unfortunately unable to accept that as sufficient reason to curb his own. Even reading of Dante's torments for those whose envy turned them to treason, thievery, or even the relatively innocuous simony (of which Cesare's father was unquestionably guilty) had little effect--although the _Inferno_ had never frightened him as it had Juan. Perhaps that was fitting in its own way.

 

He returned to the opening canto and ran his fingers across the slightly raised black letters. There were those who still claimed that the printing press was the instrument of Satan, but Cesare was content to enjoy the fruits of innovation.

 

"Stop thinking about Juan." At the sound of his sister's order, Cesare couldn't help but smile. "There. That's better."

 

"I wasn't thinking about him, as it happens. I was thinking about printing presses."

 

"Before that."

 

"Dante." He gestured to the book.

 

"And before that?"

 

"Juan." She would have found him out eventually; Lucrezia always did, one way or the other. "To which circle of Hell would the poet consign me, sister?"

 

She pursed her lips, head tilted like one of the songbirds Madonna Giulia liked to keep in gilded cages in her garden. "None, if you do not act upon it."

 

Cesare laughed. "I should be pointing out to you that to conceive of sin is to commit it."

 

"Dante did not think so, and you asked to which circle _he_ would consign you." She leant over his shoulder. " _Una selva oscura_ ," she read aloud, seeming to taste each word. "The first time I ever read this, it made me wonder if those woods were like the forest near San Sisto."

 

"Darker," Cesare said, grinning. "Bigger. The darkest wood you could ever imagine. Trees stretching into the sky till you can't even see the sun. Woods where it's always dark and there are always shadows..." _Much like the Palazzo Apostolico_ , he added silently.

 

"Why did Dante leave the path, I wonder."

 

"I don't think he meant to leave it." As he said the words, Cesare frowned, looking down at the book still open on his lap. The verses themselves occupied a bare half of the page, bordered on two sides by Landino's dense, frequently aggravating, Tuscan commentary. Ignoring the close-set blocks of text, he concentrated on the three opening lines.

 

 _Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita  
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura  
ché la diritta via era smarrita_.[i]

 

"But you would." Lucrezia was watching him now, twisting pale strands of hair between her fingers. His sister's vanity was already legendary--it was said the mad Florentine monk Savonarola had dedicated a sermon to the hours she spent washing her hair each week, and that Lucrezia's response, when told of it, was that she had heard that a woman's long hair was a glory to her and that perhaps the esteemed Brother ought to rethink his attitude. "You would leave the path on purpose."

 

"If Dante hadn't been lost, he would never have seen anything. There would be no _Commedia_." For a brief moment, he wondered what sort of world that might be. " _Audentes Fortuna iuviat_."

 

"Fortuna favours the bold," she translated without missing a beat. "But don't be too bold, brother. _Quem di diligunt, adolescens moritur_."[ii]

 

"Very funny. That is a soldier's fate, Lucrezia. Not a cardinal's." Thrusting the book into her hands, Cesare rose and made his way to the window. Across the expanse of the Tiber stood the Castel Sant' Angelo, and, just beyond, the towers of St Peter's Basilica where their father had just assumed the mantle of the Vicar of Christ from the long-ailing Innocent VIII. Already, Cesare had more benefices to his name than most bishops--indeed, he was Bishop of Pamplona thanks to his father's influence and the late Pope's pliancy. The red silk robes were only a matter of time. For a second, he could feel them--heavy as iron shackles--and shuddered.

 

The swish of silk--only the most delicate in this heat--and a breath of jasmine and ambergris told him Lucrezia had followed, even before she placed her hand over his. "Our father only wants--"

 

"A dynasty. A kingdom built on the ruins of the Caesars, with all the power of the Holy See behind it. But why I must hold the Church when Juan--"

 

"Juan cannot be trusted," was Lucrezia's shrugging assessment. "Dukes may be impolitic; it is their privilege. But cardinals must be more careful. The Church, as we know, is a perilous place."

 

"Hardly perilous." He grimaced. "A collection of doddering old men. And, yes, I know we must please them for now and please them I shall, but it's so very _dull_ , sister."

 

"And nobody ever writes poems about cardinals," she added with a wry smile. "Except for Dante, that is, when they've offended him." She made to lift her hand but he caught her fingers and held them fast. "You will do great things, Cesare. Papa knows that. To hear him tell it--"

 

"He had a dream the night before I was born," Cesare concluded, rolling his eyes, "and so decided not to name me after himself, but after Julius Caesar. Because after Alexander comes Caesar. Caesar who, if I might add, was not a priest."

 

No, indeed. To those who followed him, Caesar was a god.

 

"I would caution, brother, against drawing your parallels too closely, I should hate to feel compelled to stab myself, or to assume that was what Papa had in mind when he had me christened."

 

"That isn't what I--"

 

"Of course it isn't." There was an edge in his sister's voice. "Because destinies are only for men. A man can do all things if he but wills them. Is that not what your beloved Alberti tells us?" Her hair had fallen forward, a golden net hiding her face from view. "I am to marry. Next year, Papa says."

 

It was several seconds before Cesare could speak. "You can't be serious. He can't possibly--"

 

"Giovanni Sforza. The Duke of Milan's cousin. I shall be _Contessa_ Lucrezia di Pesaro."

 

He vaguely noted her calling after him as he headed for the staircase, but did not answer. It took him several moments before he remembered to ride not through the maze of tiny streets to the Palazzo Cancelleria, but toward the Ponte Sant'Elio.

 

The Palazzo Apostolica was a hive of activity, the new Pope having immediately commissioned the complete redecoration of his private chambers. Cesare swept past the harried apprentices of Maestro Pinturicchio to the apartments currently occupied by His Holiness, Pope Alexander VI.

 

"You cannot possibly mean for her to marry."

 

His father raised his eyes from the letter he was reading. "And what else do you expect your sister to do if not marry?"

 

"She's thirteen, Papa!" The childish title slipped out before he could stop himself and, on instinct, Cesare sank into obeisance. "Your Holiness."

 

"Thirteen is not so young, Cesare. And this is an opportunity we cannot afford to waste. We need allies. Do you think I wish to lose her any more than you do?" Oddly enough, Cesare believed him. Lucrezia had always been his father's favourite. "If I had my choice, I would keep her here till the day I died. But by that, I would do myself and her a grave injustice. And, besides, engagements can be broken if necessity demands. Even marriages, for that matter."

 

"And what of a vow to the Church, Your Holiness?" Cesare met his father's eyes. "Can that be broken?"

 

"Would you hurt me thus, Cesare?"

 

"I have no calling for it--"

 

"Who needs calling when you have brains? Would you rather have them bashed in on a battlefield? You are not so foolish, my dear boy. And besides," reaching across the desk, he held out a letter positively dripping with seals, "I'm giving you the Archbishopric of Valencia. It will add considerably to your income."

 

Gritting his teeth, Cesare bowed his head. "You are generous as ever, Your Holiness."

 

"Do not underestimate your sister, Cesare." At the sound of steel in his father's voice, Cesare met the eyes of the man who would singlehandedly lead Christendom into a new century. "You of all people should know Lucrezia better than that."

 

"She will do as you bid her. But have you no thought at all for her happiness?"

 

"Of course I do. I think of little else." He studied another letter, and Cesare noted on the seal a writhing snake quartered with an eagle. Milan, naturally. "Besides, who would think to hurt her, knowing what she means to us all?"

 

It was not insignificant, after all, to be the Pope's child. Cesare knew it, perhaps better than anyone aside from useless, ungrateful Juan, who repaid their father's indulgence with further humiliating exploits. He had never been able to understand this strange blindness of their father's to Juan's faults. Or to Cesare's true calling.

 

Perhaps there was nothing to understand. Fathers and Popes alike had their weaknesses; he had spent much of his childhood listening to his father's complaints about his predecessors. And, after all, it was a woman's place to marry--why _should_ Lucrezia's case be any different?

 

But dissatisfaction is a worm that burrows deep. And where it burrows, it breeds.

 

 

 _ii. June, 1497_

 

It was wicked, she knew, but Lucrezia could think of no place in which she was happier than in her father's decadent court--and emphatically without her husband.

 

She hadn't hated Giovanni Sforza--he was tolerable enough, and Pesaro, though nothing in comparison to Rome, had its own charms. Indeed, she rather pitied him now; it wasn't his fault that his family was the reason the French King had crossed the Alps two years before.[iii] It was, however, entirely his fault that, during that invasion, he had been passing information to the Duke of Milan.

 

Although the army passed them by completely--Pesaro being well to the west of the route to Rome and Naples--Cesare's letters arrived like clockwork each week, filled with darkly comic anecdotes about the difficulty entailed in hauling the contents of their father's treasury through the network of tunnels connecting the Palazzo Apostolico to the more easily defensible Castel Sant'Angelo.

 

 _He can't bear to part with a ducat of it--although I wonder how much is his own greed and how much is a slap in the eye to the French King. Do not fear for us, sister. A little excitement will only improve our father's temper_.

 

A little excitement, indeed. For weeks, they heard nothing, only that the French had reached the gates of Rome just before the Feast of the Nativity and then, toward the end of January, that the army had moved on to Naples. Only then did a letter arrive from her father, praising God, the Virgin and his own quick tongue for their salvation. It concluded with a brief reference to Cesare's accompanying the French King to claim his birthright and the insistence that, no matter what she heard, Lucrezia remain in Pesaro until he himself called her back to Rome.

 

She was prepared to be furious with him when he did call her several months later, but her anger melted away as she passed through the gates into the city, and she had no desire whatsoever to return to Pesaro. Why would she, when all she craved of music and dancing and poetry and scandal was here? Even Juan's behaviour she could tolerate before leaving Rome.

 

It had been three years since she'd last seen him, the brother only two years her senior, but it seemed he hadn't changed one bit. Still weak and petulant, content to live off Cesare's efforts and their father's indulgence.

 

As if conjured by that thought, the door opened to admit Cesare, who promptly expelled her maid and flung himself across the bed like a melodramatic housecat. "What are you laughing about?"

 

"You," she replied. "Why such drama, Cesare?"

 

"He had everything in Spain. Why can't he be content with that?"

 

Juan. Always Juan, these days. "What has he done now?"

 

Cesare's brow was furrowed in an expression torn between annoyance and reluctant admiration. "Sancia."

 

Lucrezia studied him for a moment. "Are you serious? _Juan_?"

 

"I wish I were joking." Cesare was lying on his back, his arm over his face. "Have you any idea how humiliating this is? Jofrè was bad enough--"

 

"Technically, I believe you were the one who cuckolded him," she said, shrugging. "Really, you and Sancia are enough to put me off marrying again."

 

"Who said anything about your marrying again?" It was a simple enough question, but something in Cesare's voice made it heavy with meaning.

 

Setting down the hairbrush, she crossed the room to sit beside him. "Nobody did. But I am only seventeen, Cesare. And is it not a woman's lot to inspire great deeds in her husband?"

 

"Or in her lover," he suggested. Lucrezia swatted him over the head with an embroidered cushion. "You can't deny it. Guinevere inspired Lancelot, not Arthur."

 

"Shame on you, Your Eminence. I thought you were meant to be discouraging adultery." Realising what she had said, she laid her hand on his shoulder. "Forgive me, _caro mio_. I shouldn't have mentioned it." He shook his head, fingers curling round hers as he rested his head on her lap. "You cared for her, didn't you?"

 

Cesare did not respond at first, and Lucrezia had begun to wonder if he'd fallen asleep when he suddenly spoke up." I did not, I confess."

 

She frowned. "What do you mean? It lasted for months, I recall."

 

"It did." He sounded unsure. "But you asked if I cared for her. And my answer is no. And, before you ask," he added, "it has nothing to do with the Church. I would turn my back on it in an instant if our father bade me." He shifted so he was looking at her, but his eyes seemed far away. "I ought to have been commanding those armies, Lucrezia.[iv] Even our father knows that, though he'll never admit it."

 

"He sees himself in Juan. How, I cannot say for certain. Speaking of men who put me off marriage," she added, shuddering. "Poor Doña Maria."

 

"She has her own household and her own treasury; I'm certain she'll do very well without him."

 

"Do you have pity for no one, brother?"

 

"Should I?" He sat up in one quick movement, her hand still caught in his. "Certainly not for Sancia--don't deny it, you were going to ask me."

 

"Surely you pity anybody whom Fortuna hates enough to marry to Jofrè," she cajoled. "You cannot be so unfeeling."

 

"Nor can I force myself to feel, Lucrezia. Sancia was..." he shrugged, "enjoyable."

 

" _Enjoyable_?" Lucrezia echoed, unsure of whether to be scandalised or furious, or perhaps even both. "Shall I ask her the same question, then? Perhaps you were quite forgettable."

 

He wasn't, and he knew it. Lucrezia, despite her protests, had heard more than enough from Sancia on the subject. And, on one mortifying occasion, she had been searching for a gown in one of Sancia's trunks when the two of them burst into the bedchamber, having found a moment to steal away together.

 

Cesare's eyes had met hers briefly as she paused at the door. His smile was one she could not quite banish from her remembrance.

 

"You're well rid of Sforza," he said, apropos of nothing. "They are finished, or soon will be, at any rate."

 

"I found him inoffensive enough," Lucrezia said with a shrug. "Better him than one of Juan's habits. Or Jofrè's. Or yours, for that matter."

 

"No husband of yours will ever hurt you, Lucrezia." There was something in his voice that made her glance at him, his face half-shadowed in the candlelight. "I can promise you that."

 

It was then that she remembered the letter one of her father's spies had intercepted on its way to Ferrara. "We should be more careful, perhaps," she said, poised to stand, but for his grip on her hand. "Cesare, I don't know if you've heard--"

 

"That they say I share your bed." He was looking directly at her, no uncertainty, no nervousness. But it was Cesare--when did he ever reveal such petty thoughts? "Yes, I know of the rumours. They accuse our father as well."

 

Her disgust must have shown, for he took both of her hands in his. "They'll never have the courage to say it to our faces."

 

"What does that matter when they can _print_ it?" she spat, ashamed of the tears that started in her eyes. "You should go." Just as she knew he wouldn't listen, wrapping his arms around her, telling her in the language of the supposed homeland she'd never seen that all would be well. He had done this countless times before. Only now did there seem something sinful in it.

 

"Stop this, Lucrezia. Don't you see what they're doing?" He'd grasped her wrists as she tried to step away, eyes locked on hers. "They _want_ us to suspect one another; can't you see that?"

 

"Who?"

 

"Everyone. Because they're frightened of us, Lucrezia. We're not like them. We have no ties here, no loyalties. They're all at our mercy. Mine and our father's--and yours." She did not ask about Juan or Jofrè, as though she already knew the answer. "You do know, don't you, that I'll never let them hurt you."

 

Lucrezia nodded. "Nor I you." Reaching out, she pressed her fingers to his mouth. "And don't you laugh. Or I'll kill you."

 

He smiled. "I shouldn't dare. How would you do it?"

 

"What a question!" Lucrezia had to swallow her laughter. "Are you serious?"

 

"Why not?" There was something in his face, an expression she could not classify. "Tell me, Lucrezia."

 

"You're being absurd." She swallowed, looking at the floor, the mirror, anything to avoid his eyes. "How would you want me to kill you, Cesare?"

 

"Quickly." Before she knew what had happened, the dagger from his belt was in her hand, its point aimed at his heart. "One strike, right there. Through the heart."

 

She could see a tiny drop of blood caught at the dagger's point as she asked, "And you trust me to remember?" The dagger slipped from her fingers; impossibly, he caught it. "It would depend, surely, on the offence you had committed."

 

"The greatest and the simplest. _Amor vincit omnia_."

 

Although she convinced herself of both in alternating hours of guilt and fury, she could not have said whether it was Cesare who kissed her or vice versa. Only that, try as she might, like Francesca, she could not for all the world wish it undone. __

And, God help her, she did not see until too late that Juan was standing in the doorway.

 

"You're a fine one to lecture me, brother!" His eyes were unfocused, glazed from drink, his smile on the edge of hysteria. "It seems the Cardinal of Valencia has his weaknesses, same as any man."

 

"Cesare, _no_ ," she snapped, keeping hold of his arm. "You have no idea what you're talking about." But Juan was laughing, stumbling through the doorway toward his own chambers. "Cesare, you mustn't."

 

"Juan has no discretion."

 

"And it's our word against his." No longer touching him, Lucrezia straightened and looked into his eyes. "Nothing happened. Nothing has changed."

 

Cesare nodded, and only then did Lucrezia realise she was holding her breath.

 

She left for the convent of San Sisto the next morning.

 

Within a fortnight, the news reached her that Juan had been found dead in the Tiber. _I'll never let them hurt you_. She began to buy prayers for Cesare's soul.

 

***

 

It ought not to have surprised her that he turned out to be right. Within two years of Juan's death, Papa had dissolved what minuscule symbolic connection remained between Cesare and the Church, and, mere days later, an envoy from the King of France had presented him with the duchy of Valentinois in anticipation of his departure for the French court.

 

It did occur to her to briefly wonder at her father's powers of observation, having timed Cesare's return to secular life a bare few weeks after Lucrezia's marriage to Sancia's younger brother Alfonso. Two months later, he was on his way to Chinon with a dispensation for the King to remarry that he was to barter for a royal marriage for himself.

 

She was surprised to discover how much she missed him. He wrote to her as he always had, but there was a strange exuberance in his letters now, full of grandiose plans for the kingdom he'd always wanted but could only now seize for himself. And only poor, drunken Juan in his way. There were many times when Lucrezia wondered if Cesare had merely been looking for an excuse.

 

Carefully left out of her letters was any mention of Alfonso or of the child she had lost. She wrote of their father and of the court, of ambassadors' visits and the never-ending plots against Papa. Nor did she hear from Cesare of his marriage--that news came via a special courier from the King of France. In fact, the courier did not fail to include a report of the groom's impressively enthusiastic consummation: No fewer than twice before supper and six later in the night.[v] Lucrezia had rolled her eyes at that, expecting confirmation from Sancia, but all her sister-in-law offered was a rueful smile.

 

The city of Rome was aflame that night, fireworks lighting up the sky and bonfires in the streets to celebrate their Valentino's triumph. Perhaps he was becoming one of them after all.

 

It was also the night that Lucrezia, whose pregnancy was only beginning to show, became the only thing standing between Alfonso and a _stiletto_ through the ribs. By the end of summer he and Sancia had decided to leave Rome for their own safety--or, at least, Sancia had decided to leave and insisted that Alfonso accompany her. Without Lucrezia. _Of everybody in this den of vipers, she's the likeliest to make it out alive_.

 

Not to mention that her father would never countenance her leaving Rome under these circumstances. And who could plead for Alfonso's case if she did not? Rather to her own chagrin, she added that it would be far less suspicious if Sancia followed later as well. Alfonso journeyed to Naples on his own; within a few weeks, Sancia had infuriated Lucrezia's father to the point that he banished her to Naples himself. Lucrezia, in the meantime, was sent to Spoleto as governor, at least until word arrived that the King of France, with Cesare beside him, had entered the city of Milan.

 

And into the midst of a world rapidly tilting out of control, came Rodrigo d'Aragon, with his father's smile and the unfortunate liability of Neapolitan blood. But Papa's weakness for his own family seemed to outweigh his pique with Alfonso, and they found themselves back in favour and back in Rome before winter. She found herself wishing Cesare would stay in Milan, but Fortuna and Madonna Caterina Sforza of Forlì chose otherwise.

 

"One must give her credit for being inventive," Cesare's voice was expounding to their father when Lucrezia threw open the door. "Letters," he held up a square of paper bearing the Sforza crest with one ostentatiously gloved hand, "steeped in poison."[vi]

 

"Inventive, indeed," laughed Papa. "There are stories about Caterina Sforza, Cesare. You may find more trouble than you're looking for in Forlì."

 

But Cesare had already caught sight of her in the doorway. The smile he gave her was infectious, and Lucrezia threw herself into his arms with peals of laughter. "You're glowing, Lucrezia. Motherhood agrees with you, does it?"

 

"I should like to know how marriage agrees with you, brother, but how can I when you hide your wife in France?" she asked. "Are you ashamed of us?"

 

"Charlotte is no Caterina Sforza; she doesn't belong in a military camp. When I've won my kingdom, I'll bring her there."

 

It was no longer a question of _if_.

 

 

 _iii. February, 1500_

 

It seemed as though every time Cesare entered the city of Rome since returning from France, it was in some sort of triumphal procession. From the balcony of the Palazzo Santa Maria, Lucrezia watched as he rode along the street beneath, an oddly sombre figure in black velvet. As ever, he looked up at her as he passed, and, as ever, she smiled down at him as all the city did.

 

 _Cesar_. It was embroidered on the liveries of his followers and engraved on the hilt of his sword. Papa had commissioned tableaux depicting the Triumphs of Julius Caesar. It was all coming to fruition--all of Papa's hopes and dreams now concentrated on the son who could live up to them.

 

And all in a Jubilee year, no less; Papa couldn't have planned it better if he'd tried. What better time to reintroduce Cesare into the world as the new champion of Holy Church than when Rome had thrown open its gates to an army of pilgrims willing to brave not only the Alpine passes but the French army camped at Novara, awaiting battle with the slippery, elusive Duke of Milan. Word would spread quick and far of the Pope's dauntless son, ready and willing to cross his own Rubicon and cast his dice for the prize of a kingdom.

 

Even Alfonso admitted to a grudging admiration for Cesare's lofty ambitions, though he expressed his doubts that they would come to fruition--to this, Lucrezia chose not to volunteer a response, recalling what Cesare himself had told her in an unexpectedly candid moment some days before.

 

"At least it should be on the battlefield," he muttered, the words barely audible over the banquet in the next room. "No knives in the Senate; there's some dignity in that."

 

"Unless you propose to be killed by the College of Cardinals, I think you'll find we have no Senate in Rome these days," said Lucrezia, keeping her tone deliberately light. "I can't imagine they would object to the opportunity to do away with you, but doddering old men are easy to outrun, surely?"

 

Not even the flicker of a smile.

 

"Cesare, really, you're not still thinking about that horoscope, are you?" He'd had it cast by a scholar in Germany but had spent the week since it arrived carrying it, unopened, in his doublet. Lucrezia fished it out now, before he could stop her, and held it over her head.

 

Cesare did not move, though his lips twitched. "I'm taller than you. That won't help."

 

"I don't see you trying." Lowering the letter, she drew the tiny, jewelled dagger from her sleeve and sliced through the thick seal. "I'll open it and we'll read it together."

 

His eyes were on the blade still. He had given it to her on the night before her wedding to Giovanni Sforza. "I see you've taken my advice to be cautious."

 

"One must be, in this court. Our friends today are our enemies tomorrow, and it's growing increasingly difficult to tell the difference." If the barb hit, it was impossible to tell. "Well?"

 

Cesare leant forward to read over her shoulder as she settled back down beside him on the window-seat. "Seal my fate, _Lucrezia bella_. Or should I call you Sibyl?"

 

She glared at him, if only to hide the tiny shiver whose cause she could not quite pin down, and set to unfolding the letter. It was, in fact, an astrological chart, filled with numbers, symbols, and stray Greek letters whose significance she could not quite fathom. "Is this what they taught you in Pisa?"

 

"Somewhat of it," he replied absently, chewing his lip. The scars on his face--a souvenir of the _morbo gallico_ \--had faded, blending into the colour he'd acquired on campaign.[vii] Women had been throwing themselves at him since his arrival from France the previous autumn, including none other than the infamous Countess of Forlì--although Lucrezia was sceptical of Cesare's claim that she defended her virtue less effectively than she had her fortress.[viii] The Countess was now imprisoned in the Castel Sant'Angelo for her attempt the previous year to poison the Pope, but Lucrezia had seen her in Cesare's victorious procession into Rome, where she had held her head high and even flirted with a number of young men in the crowd until Cesare's soldiers forced them back. And now there were rumours of a courtesan, La Fiammetta, who lived near the Piazza Navona. Lucrezia wondered briefly if, among La Fiammetta's many and varied accomplishments, _she_ could read astrological charts.

 

"What does it say, _caro_?" she asked, conscious suddenly of the persistent silence. "Cesare?"

 

He took the chart without a word, folded it, and stuffed it back into his doublet as he stood. "Nothing. Nothing different."

 

"What do you mean?" As realisation struck, Lucrezia sighed. "Your stars are what you make of them, Cesare."

 

"Our father's motto, one might say." He studied the folded chart for a moment before flinging it--as if it were a stone on the river--into the hearth. "If the Ides of March should befall us, on your head be it."

 

Lucrezia had opened her mouth to inform him that the Ides of March fell every year when he added seemingly as an afterthought. "The House of Aragon is finished. You're neither blind nor stupid, Lucrezia. You know this."

 

She had known this moment would come since he first arrived from France. It was why she had been so careful to avoid him. "I don't see what that has to do with anything. He is my husband and we have a child--"

 

"He's also embarrassingly Neapolitan." When Lucrezia looked up, her eyes met his. "You're too great a prize to waste on them. You could be a princess--"

 

"I'm happy as I am, Cesare. Does that not matter to you even a little? Are you now as indifferent to me as you are to all the other pawns on your chessboard?"

 

"Not a pawn, Lucrezia. You've always been the Queen."

 

"Then leave me out of your French adventure. We'll leave the court. Go to Spoleto or Foligno, out of the way. You'll never even know we're there."

 

"And deprive us all of your presence here in Rome?" Cesare shook his head. "Papa would never allow it. Not for the bastard son of a deposed king."

 

"Cesare, don't _do_ this." She could feel the tears pricking in her eyes, could hear her voice shaking as she ran to his side and grabbed his hand. "Please. Please, Cesare, I beg you." Then, letting go of him as if he burned her, she stepped back. "Papa would never let it happen."

 

"It was our father who encouraged King Louis to send his army over the Alps."

 

"Only because they promised _you_ the Kingdom of Naples," Lucrezia spat.

 

"Then perhaps you ought to ask the fair Princess Carlotta why she saw fit to turn me down," said Cesare with a shrug. "We should return, or we'll be missed."

 

He was nearly to the door by the time Lucrezia cried out, "Cesare!" When he turned, she held out her hand. "Spare him--if you love me--"

 

"Don't." The single word seemed to echo against the flagstones, and for a moment, Lucrezia thought she saw a glimmer at the corner of his eye. "He's not worthy of you."

 

"Surely that's for me to decide." She straightened, keeping her eyes fixed on his. "You will not hurt him, Cesare."

 

"I cannot promise you that. I have many enemies and he is among them; I am, after all, depriving his father of his crown. Not to mention my past indiscretions with his sister."

 

"Oh, for God's sake, Sancia does as she pleases; Alfonso knows that as well as anybody. Cesare, promise me."

 

"Forgive me, Lucrezia."

 

He left her in tears, a state she used to beg her father to protect Alfonso for her sake. Even as she did so, she wondered which fortress of hers might best withstand a siege. But she was no Caterina Sforza; she was not a woman to inspire armies. All she could do was protect Alfonso herself. _A den of vipers_. Sancia had been right all along.

 

Thankfully, news of the French victory at Novara and their imminent arrival in the Romagna proved sufficient distraction for Cesare. Then, the tenuous peace was broken altogether when one of the ceilings in the Palazzo Apostolico collapsed upon their father, leaving him unconscious and the city rife with rumours of his death. He awakened to find them all by his bedside, even Cesare and Alfonso, who behaved as if nothing were amiss.

 

It did not occur to her to fear when, in the early hours of the morning, Alfonso elected to leave on his own; they lived a mere stone's throw from the Piazza, after all. What seemed like only moments later, one of the guards sounded the alarm. The last thing Lucrezia recalled as she sank into a faint was what seemed like a river of blood pouring from a great wound in her husband's neck.

 

She found her father seated beside her when she awakened. "Alfonso--"

 

"In the next room," he said, one hand firmly on her arm. "My own physicians are caring for him, although Sancia has sent to the King of Naples and I expect she will insist."

 

"Can you blame her?" demanded Lucrezia. "How could you let this happen?" The question seemed to hang on her tongue like a weight. "Tell me you did not know."

 

"My God, Lucrezia, of course I didn't." He looked offended at the very thought. "This was the work of bunglers, cheap thugs from the stews. If I had intended to have my son-in-law removed, rest assured it would have been done with more finesse."

 

"How very comforting." She tried to glare at him but found she could not, instead dredged up a watery smile. "Don't let me sleep too long. I must see him."

 

"Of course, _carina_."

 

Alfonso's wounds were not fatal, but only by a few miraculous inches. As the sultry summer wore on, Lucrezia found her world contracted to the suite of rooms where her husband lay. True to her word, Sancia ordered King Federigo's own physician from Naples, and, slowly but surely, Alfonso began to recover.

 

His visitors had been, until recently, confined to His Holiness, Lucrezia, Sancia, and baby Rodrigo--Cesare, no doubt aware of his sister's views on the subject, had politely sent his best wishes through the Pope. The doctor, however, had pronounced him well enough to receive his uncle and the royal envoy from Naples.

 

When the guards entered, she did not notice at first, assuming they had been waiting to escort Alfonso's guests. Then she saw Michelotto. This was Cesare's doing.

 

Sancia was shrieking and Alfonso shouting orders as the guards seized both of the men from Naples. In the midst of the tumult, Lucrezia grabbed Michelotto's arm.

 

"What is the meaning of this outrage, Michelotto? How dare you arrest envoys from the King of Naples himself? He was still King, when last I heard."

 

He at least had the grace to lower his eyes and bow. "I do not give the orders, Madonna. I only obey those given to me. If these men are indeed innocent, I cannot think but that His Holiness will see them freed immediately."

 

"We'll both go!" Sancia spoke up from the other side of Alfonso's bed, where they had been whispering. "He can't gainsay both of us."

 

Lucrezia sank onto the bed beside her husband. "I won't leave you." She watched from the corner of her eye as Michelotto led his men from the room, Alfonso's uncle and the Neapolitan envoy bound like prisoners between them.

 

"I'll be fine, Lucrezia. I worry more for them--the cells in the Castel Sant'Angelo would try even the strongest man. You must speak to your father."

 

"Hurry!" called Sancia from the door.

 

Lucrezia leant forward and kissed Alfonso, fingers dancing across his face as if trying to memorise it by touch. He laughed, a trifle desperately. "Now go, _virago mio_."

 

As soon as they left the room--locking the door securely behind them--Lucrezia began to run, Sancia following in her wake. "I do not trust them. Any of them. The sooner we return, the better. And don't say anything."

 

The Pope was in the chamber known as the Hall of the Saints, its walls covered with Maestro Pinturicchio's frescoes, one of which Lucrezia had posed for herself, six years earlier. Aware of the fetching picture she presented, hair tumbling over blue brocade, startlingly like the figure of St Catherine on the wall behind where her father sat, conferring with a man she recognised as Alfonso's old tutor, Maestro Brandolinus.[ix]

 

"Lucrezia, whatever is the matter?"

 

Ignoring the question, she threw herself down on her knees. "I beg Your Holiness' pardon for disturbing you, but I must--I _must_ speak with you." Voice trembling, she explained what had happened in Alfonso's rooms. Behind her, Sancia thankfully kept her peace as she had asked. Finally, she looked up at her father, tears standing in her eyes. "Papa, please. They have done nothing wrong."

 

"These were not my orders, _carina_. Michelotto is your brother's man." But he was already motioning to one of the guards. "Sancia, if you will be kind enough to identify these men, we will have them released."

 

Lucrezia slowly rose to her feet. "With Your Holiness' permission, I wish to return to my husband."

 

"Of course, _carina_. But we have missed you, these past weeks." He smiled--the smile Cesare had inherited and only occasionally displayed. "Tell that sluggard husband of yours that his recovery has bereft the papal court of its brightest star and that we expect you to resume your place as soon as possible."

 

"He knows, Your Holiness," she replied, curtseying again. "I appreciate your indulgence."

 

"For you, always." Strangely enough, she believed him. But that was her father's way--he would promise the sun and stars and somehow the other party would content themselves with a candle.[x]

 

Although she maintained a decorous pace for her father's benefit, the moment the door to the Hall of Saints closed behind her, she began to run. Michelotto had gone with his guards, surely, and it was no small walk from these apartments to the Castel Sant'Angelo---

 

That was before she saw the guards posted outside Alfonso's door. Guards she did not recognise; guards who wore no livery.

 

Lucrezia heard her own voice as if through a fog, demanding to enter. The guards were speaking to her, but she could not understand the words. An accident, a fall, his wounds had reopened; they did not wish Madonna to see---

 

"He is my husband. You must let me see him." Still, they refused. They were under orders, strict orders that could not, under any circumstances, be disobeyed. "I am Valentino's sister, the Pope's daughter, and Duchess of Bisceglie. You _will_ let me into that room or His Holiness shall hear of it."

 

"Your husband is dead, Madonna." It was the younger of the two guards, the one who refused to look at her. "We are very sorry."

 

A single thread of sound seemed to coalesce inside Lucrezia's mind, an endless scream that she only then realised was her own.

 

***

 

Alfonso was buried quickly and privately at Santa Maria della Febbre. The Pope himself oversaw the burial, and it seemed, even through the haze of sleeping draughts and shock that now overlaid Lucrezia's vision, that Alfonso's death had genuinely upset him. He was right--Michelotto was Cesare's man now and had been since he'd put off his cardinal's robes.

 

It had not occurred to her that Cesare would be so bold as to visit her the next day, after she had barricaded herself in the Palazzo Santa Maria. But visit her, he did, ostentatiously surrounding himself with no fewer than a hundred men-at-arms who were now cooling their heels in her antechamber.

 

She did not know how long he stood there, watching her in silence. "Do you want me to deny it?"

 

"I would never believe you. Not in a hundred, thousand years. Not for all the souls in Purgatory and Hell combined--not for their salvation would I believe you."

 

"I am thinking of our future. Of our family." He started toward her, holding out his hand. "Believe me, Lucrezia, I did not do this to hurt you."

 

"You knew. You knew what he meant to me, even if you cannot understand--you can't possibly understand because you have no heart, Cesare." She could not look at him, suddenly aware of how much she longed to draw the tiny dagger from her sleeve and see for herself. "Do you know what your lady of Forlì did to the men who killed her husband?"

 

"Something inventive, no doubt. Is that what you intend for me?" He was close now, close enough to pluck the dagger from its sheath at her wrist and spin her to face him. His fingers closed on hers around the handle, poised at his neck as it had been above his heart on the night he'd sworn never to hurt her. "This is your chance."

 

"What, with a hundred of your men outside?" The blade bit his skin, droplets of blood sparkling on polished steel. "Would they not protect their precious Valentino?"

 

"Not if their orders were to wait. My men are nothing if not obedient."

 

"And you would let me do it."

 

In response, he knelt before her and tossed aside the black velvet doublet. Every movement seemed to take an age, until his hand closed over Lucrezia's again, positioning the dagger over his heart. His eyes met hers. "Can you do it, _Lucrezia bella_?"

 

He had killed Alfonso. Never mind that it had been Michelotto's hand--it was but an extension of Cesare's arm. Lucrezia's fingers were shaking but Cesare held the blade steady. "You will find, if you continue, that I do have a heart like any other man."

 

Her hand slipped, and the tiny blade sank into his skin, just an inch or so. Cesare's breath caught and--for some infinitesimal moment--she saw fear in his face. The loss of all his dreams, all his aspirations, but not in battle as he'd planned. Instead, it would be behind closed doors, at the hands of a woman.

 

But he did not stop her. His fingers held steady around hers, their eyes locked. _Watch me die_ , he seemed to say. _That is the price of this revenge_. "You know what happens to those who betrayed their kin. _Caïna_. A lake of ice, fed by winds colder than the Alpine passes."[xi] She twisted the dagger just slightly. Blood dripped steadily onto the floor. "Will you risk that?"

 

"Will you send me there?"

 

Tears were spilling from her eyes. "You know I can't."

 

He reached up and brushed them away, seeming oblivious to the dagger as it clattered to the ground. "I didn't know that. I would not have blamed you, and it would not be for Juan that I would weep in Caïna."

 

"Stop it. Please, just _stop_ \--"

 

"You are too good for this place, Lucrezia." There was a strange sort of envy in his expression, but beneath it, exhilaration--the crack in Valentino's armour, the one force beyond Cesare Borgia's vaunted control. The one person in the world for whom he would pause--even if only for an instant.

 

At that, she could not help but laugh--a sound just on the edge of a sob. "Not anymore." Turning her head, she brushed her lips against Cesare's hand, felt the spasmodic flutter of his fingers. She sank to her knees and into his arms.

 

 _A den of vipers_. And she was no better than any of them.

 

 

 _iv. January, 1502_

 

They called Rome the City of Whores, and in these twelve days of Christmas leading up to the Feast of Epiphany, _anno Domini_ 1502, she lived up to that title.

 

That Cesare had played his part, he well knew. Rumours were spilling out of the Palazzo Apostolico of hedonistic excess, of orgies and elaborate, luxurious games to celebrate the final winter Carnevale that His Holiness' beloved daughter would spend in Rome for the foreseeable future.

 

Lucrezia, whom he had once read like a much-beloved book known half off by heart, was the impenetrable eye of this festive storm. She had accepted the idea of marriage to the Duke of Ferrara's heir with far more alacrity than he would have predicted--even remarking with a rueful grin that she would enjoy putting the infamous Marchesa of Mantua's nose out of joint by marrying her beloved elder brother and outranking her as a result.

 

Their father, though beside himself at the triumph of marrying his daughter into the Este family, was fully aware that Lucrezia's marriage would mean her departure from Rome, perhaps indefinitely, but it was only in these last few days that his sorrow began to show. Lucrezia was at his side whenever her duties as hostess permitted her and, as such, Cesare barely saw her, let alone had the chance to speak to her.

 

Epiphany Day saw the streets of Rome blanketed with snow, enough to muffle the horses' hooves as the procession gathered in the Piazza to begin the near-three-hundred-mile journey to Ferrara.

 

In the Hall of Saints, Lucrezia and the Pope had been closeted for well over an hour before Cesare was admitted. His father rose from the chair and made his way to one of the smaller doors leading to his private chambers. "You are what I love most in all the world. I will not be here forever---no," he forestalled Cesare's words before he could speak, "Cesare, it is the truth. You must protect one another."

 

"Of course, Papa," Lucrezia said without delay, a mischievous smile on her face. "But you are to outlive Methuselah, remember? You must see Cesare take his crown."

 

"God willing." Sketching a cross in the air, he left them.

 

Lucrezia turned and raised the ermine-lined cloak over her head. "He's right, of course. I still remember what you told me, brother. We are alone in this world--we have no ties, which leaves us with no allies either. You have made yourself indispensable to France, and so I shall to Ferrara." With a small smile, she held out her hand. "Write to me."

 

"How could I not?" He smiled back--a smile Il Valentino's followers would have been shocked to see in their taciturn Duke. "You need only ever ask, you know. I'll come for you."

 

"I know." Candlelight glinted on cloth-of-gold as he led her to the door. "God willing it shall not come to that."

 

Cardinal Ippolito d'Este, Lucrezia's other escort, was waiting outside the Hall of Saints. Linking her arm through both of theirs, she laughed like any bride before her wedding. Cesare watched her in silence, smiling ruefully.

 

Glancing up at the windows of the Palazzo Apostolico, he could just catch a glimpse of white. His father would watch, he knew, until Lucrezia had disappeared from sight. He'd had one of those moments--a premonition, he said, that he would never see her again.

 

Cesare had no such fears. His were deeper, more pervasive, the sickening horror not of losing Lucrezia to Ferrara, but having already lost her.

 

They stopped just outside the city on the Via Flaminia, and Lucrezia paused beside him. There were snowflakes caught in Lucrezia's hair, sparkling like the jewels in her hat. "Do not forget me, brother, when you have your kingdom."

 

"Nor you, when you have your duchy." When he embraced her, it seemed as if she clung to him for a moment longer than was needed. So she was frightened, just a little.

 

He waited until well after dark, till the lights had passed out of sight.

 

 _Finis._

 

 

 

* * *

My main sources for this story are Niccolò Machiavelli, _The Prince_ (trans. Robert M. Adams), Sarah Bradford, _Lucrezia Borgia: Life, Love, and Death in Renaissance Italy_ (Penguin, 2003) and Christopher Hibbert, _The Borgias and Their Enemies 1431-1519_ (Mariner, 2008). The Dante translation I used is John Ciardi from 1954.

[i] Dante, _Inferno_ , 1-3: 'Midway in our life's journey, I went astray / from the straight road and woke to find myself / alone in a dark wood.' Although it is known that Lucrezia Borgia owned an edition of Dante's _Divina Commedia_ , which edition it was has not been specified aside from the fact that it had a commentary and was bound in violet leather. This story assumes the edition printed in Venice by Ottoviano Scotto in 1484, which included an extensive commentary by Cristoforo Landino.

[ii] **_Quem di diligunt, adolescens moritur_** : Originally Menander, first appears in Plautus, _Bacchides_ (l. 817, translates to 'Whom the gods love die young.'

[iii] **French King** : The King of France, Charles VIII, had a small claim to the throne of Naples and decided to take it by force. Lodovico Sforza, who had been ruling the Duchy of Milan on behalf of his nephew, had a quarrel of his own with the house of Aragon (the ruling family of Naples) and lent his support to the French invasion. Pope Alexander VI played both sides until the last possible moment, when he joined the anti-French _Lega Sancta_ (Holy League) just in time for them to defeat the French at Fornovo on July 6, 1495 and force them to retreat temporarily.

[iv] **Commanding those armies** : In August 1496, Juan Borgia, two years younger than Cesare and two years older than Lucrezia, returned to Rome from Spain, where he had been living as Duke of Gandìa since 1493. Despite his reported incompetence, Alexander VI made him second-in-command of the papal army, at which he proceeded to fail spectacularly. Naturally, the more talented Cesare was quite frustrated by this.

[v] **Impressively enthusiastic consummation** : According to a letter from Gian Lucido Cattaneo, ambassador from Mantua, this did in fact appear in the report delivered to Alexander VI by special courier from Louis XII on 23 May 1499.

[vi] **Letters steeped in poison** : I don't make this stuff up. Seriously.

[vii] **_Morbo gallico_** : 'The French Disease', aka syphilis. Although syphilis itself has been around more or less indefinitely, a particularly bad outbreak followed the French invasion of Italy in 1494. Most of the papal court had it at one point or another, including Cesare.

[viii] **Countess of Forlì:** Caterina Sforza was infamous in her own time and onward for her savage-but-effective rule over Forlì and Imola; she was also one of the few rulers in the Romagna who rebelled against Cesare Borgia in 1499, and would have held out indefinitely in the fortress at Forlì if her servants hadn't surrendered behind her back.

[ix] **Pinturicchio** : Referring specifically to the [Disputation of St Catherine](http://www.terminartors.com/files/artworks/3/7/4/37420/Pinturicchio-St_Catherines_Disputation.jpg) in the Hall of the Saints. The blonde woman just in front of the arch is Lucrezia Borgia at the age of either fourteen or fifteen. Brandolinus' account is one of the more detailed we have of Alfonso d'Aragon's murder.

[x] Machiavelli devotes an entire chapter of _The Prince_ (Ch. XVIII) to Alexander VI and his particular talent for fraudulent promises.

[xi] **_Caïna_ :** Described in Dante, _Inferno_ , Canto 32, ll. 1-72.


End file.
